The Judiciary

The Supreme Court of Justice was the highest judicial authority in
the nation. The twelve Supreme Court justices were nominated by the
president and served for life. The nominations had to be approved by the
Senate. The Supreme Court of Justice was also responsible for drawing up
the budget for the judiciary, which was then submitted to the executive.
The budget could be no less than 2 percent of the government's
expenditures. Under the Supreme Court of Justice were the Superior
Courts, which were seated in the capitals of judicial districts; the
Courts of First Instance, which sat in provincial capitals and were
divided into civil, criminal, and special branches; and the justices of
the peace in all local centers.

Several other judicial functions are worthy of note. The public
prosecutor's office was appointed by the president and was responsible
for overseeing the independence of judges and the administration of
justice, representing the community at trials, and defending people
before the public administration. Public attorneys, who are also
appointed by the president, defend the interests of the state. The
office of the Public Ministry was made up of the attorney general and
attorneys before the Supreme Court of Justice, Superior Courts, and the
Courts of First Instance. Public attorneys defended the rights of
citizens in the public interest against encroachment by public
officials.

The National Elections Board established voting laws, registered
parties and their candidates, and supervised elections. It also had the
power to void elections if the electoral procedures were invalid. The
six-member board was composed of one person elected by the Supreme Court
of Justice, one by the Bar of Lima, one by the law faculty deans of the
national universities, and three Peru's regional boards.

Although in theory the judicial system was independent and guaranteed
at least minimal operating financial support, in practice this was far
from the case. The system had been hampered by scarce resources, a
tradition of executive manipulation, and inadequate protection of
officials in the face of threats from insurgents and drug traffickers.
Even without the existence of guerrilla movements, the system was
inadequately staffed to deal with the number of cases from criminal
violations. It was not uncommon for detainees to spend several years in
prison awaiting a hearing. In addition, in the emergency zones, where
guerrillas were operating, security forces have had virtual carte
blanche in the areas of interrogation and detention, and suspects often
have been held incommunicado. Imprisoned suspects awaiting trial have
subsisted in medieval conditions. In 1990 the Ministry of Justice
recorded 60 deaths from starvation and a backlog over several years of
50,000 unheard cases.

The executive branch traditionally manipulated the judiciary for its
own purposes, using its ability to appoint and remove certain judges for
its own political ends. For example, when a Superior Court judge ruled
that President García's nationalization of Peru's banks was
unconstitutional, García merely replaced him with a judge from his
party, the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular
Revolucionaria Americana--APRA), who then ruled in his favor.

It also was common for known terrorists or drug traffickers to be
released for "insufficient evidence" by judges with no
protection whatsoever but with responsibility for trying those suspected
of terrorism. Largely because of corruption or inefficiency in the
system, only 5 percent of those detained for terrorism had been
sentenced by 1991. Those responsible for administering justice were
under threat from all sides of the political spectrum: guerrilla
movements, drug traffickers, and military-linked paramilitary squads.
Notable cases included the murder of the defense attorney for the SL's
number two man, Osmán Morote Barrionuevo, by an APRA-linked death
squad, the Rodrigo Franco Command; the self-exile of a public attorney
after repeated death threats during his investigation of the military's
role in the massacre of at least twenty-nine peasants in Cayara,
Ayacucho Department, on May 14, 1988; a bloody letter-bomb explosion at
the headquarters of the Lima-based Pro-Human Rights Association
(Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos--Aprodeh); and the March 1991
resignation of an attorney general of the military court martial, after
he received death threats for denouncing police aid and abetment of the
rescue by the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento
Revolucionario Túpac Amaru-- MRTA) of one of its leaders, María Lucero
Cumpa Miranda. The judicial terrorism was hardly surprising, given the
lack of protection for judges dealing with terrorism cases; many of them
normally rode the bus daily to work, totally unprotected. Finally, owing
to neglect of the judicial system by successive governments, the Supreme
Court of Justice lacked a significant presence at the national level.

In the context of widespread terrorism, what was legal in theory and
what happened in practice had little to do with each other. As the
situation increasingly became one of unrestrained violence, the
capability of the judicial system to monitor the course of events was
reduced markedly. In addition, the judicial system was unable to escape
the loss of confidence in state institutions in general that had
occurred among the Peruvian public. The discrediting of the judicial
system was a significant step toward the total erosion of constitutional
order.